


turn off the juice, boy

by transoberyn



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: (e.g. Dex), M/M, Misunderstandings, Tango is a clueless child, Trans Male Character, obligatory hamilton references, the nurseydex is rly minor sorry guys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-07
Updated: 2016-07-07
Packaged: 2018-07-22 01:52:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,461
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7413919
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/transoberyn/pseuds/transoberyn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dex is just trying to live his life, but Tango really wants to know where those scars on his chest came from. Thankfully, Nursey is there to help.</p>
            </blockquote>





	turn off the juice, boy

**Author's Note:**

> beta'ed by joeybarreiro/transwhiskey on tumblr (thanks for doing me a solid my guy)  
> title is from west side story bc tony obviously

It started in the locker room. Dex was just minding his own business, sitting in front of his stall and inspecting a nasty looking bruise on his thigh, when Tango popped up in front of him. Dex let out a brief noise that sounded like a rapidly deflating balloon, prompting Nursey to snort in amusement across the room. 

“Hey, Dex!” 

Dex eyed Tango warily. The last time Tango had started a conversation in this manner, it had ended in 10 cans of whipped cream being emptied into his stall while he was showing Tango how to properly execute a spinorama. 

“Yes, Tango?” he sighed, abandoning his examination. 

“Where’d you get those scars on your chest from?” 

Dex’s eyebrows did a fairly accurate impression of a cat seeing a cucumber.

“Freak lobster accident. Those things are vicious, you know?” 

“Wow, really?”

“Yup. That was the last time I decided to not put on my protective equipment because it was too bulky, believe me.”

“Woah! Whiskey, did you hear that? That’s so cool!”

Dex took advantage of Tango’s distraction to vamoose as quickly as possible. It was only a matter of time before Whiskey pointed out that it was statistically impossible for a lobster to inflict perfectly symmetrical wounds on someone’s chest, especially through the heavy layers that Maine sea winds necessitated. 

\---

Tango’s next attempt occurred at a Haus dinner the day before a roadie. 

“Hey Dex, Whiskey doesn’t believe your lobster story! And seeing as how Whiskey was correct about the real culprit behind the Great Sriracha Incident of 2016, I trust his judgment.”

“But… it’s currently 2016? I feel like at least a year has to have passed before you label an event like that,” Dex pointed out (although he may have had the ulterior motive of distracting Tango from his initial topic of conversation).

It almost worked, too. Tango was sidetracked for a good five minutes attempting to argue his case. Unfortunately, Whiskey sneezed just as Tango was about to whip out his phone and Google the rules for labeling things “incidents.” 

“Wait. You were trying to distract me, weren’t you?” Tango accused Dex, the reminder of his line mate’s existence having jogged his memory.

Dex shrugged, looking like butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth. 

“Of course not.”

“Then tell me the truth! What really happened to your chest?”

Dex thought for a second, took a deep breath, and improvised.

“Well, I was walking home from school one day during my senior year in high school; I always went past this super sketchy neighborhood, right? So I was passing this alleyway between two houses, and I heard a scream. I turned and saw that a lady I knew from church was being mugged. Obviously, I had to try to help her. I tackled the guy who was mugging her and knocked him out, but not before he managed to cut me a couple of times with the switchblade he had been threatening her with.”

Tango looked amazed. 

“Wow, that’s so cool! Why didn’t you tell me the truth before?”

“Well, you know. I didn’t want to sound like I was bragging or anything.”

Tango nodded his understanding then turned around and started recounting the entire tale to Whiskey (who undoubtedly had overheard the entire conversation in its original form). Dex heaved a sigh of relief and took a large sip of his drink.

\---

Tango plopped himself down on the bus seat next to Dex. Dex issued a silent prayer for strength to the heavens; seven o’clock A.M. was far too early for this shit. 

“If you tackled the guy, wouldn’t he have stabbed you instead? I think you would probably be dead,” Tango said, sounding as if he had spent the entire night mulling Dex’s story over.

“Okay, you got me. The real reason behind the scars is that I had lung surgery as a kid. I got bullied for being tiny and sickly all the time as a kid, so I was kind of defensive about it,” Dex explained, hoping that an answer that was close to the truth but not quite would be enough to stop Tango’s incessant quest for answers.

Tango squinted at him suspiciously for a moment.

“Do you promise that you’re telling the truth this time?” he asked, looking up at Dex with the most pitiful puppydog eyes that Dex had ever seen.

“Yes, Tango. The truth is that the scars are from surgery,” Dex reassured him, careful in his phrasing. 

Tango kept up the kicked puppy look for a couple more seconds, then skedaddled to the back of the bus to find Whiskey. Nursey took his customary spot next to Dex.

“Lung surgery, huh?”

“Oh for christ’s sake, not you too,” Dex snapped. He could muster up the patience to deal with Tango, whom he knew wasn’t trying to be malicious. But Nurse? Forget about it.

“Hey, woah, it’s okay. My best friend at Andover was like you, don’t worry about it.”

Dex’s eyes narrowed.

“Like me?” he inquired, keeping his tone as even as possible. 

“Yeah. You’re trans, right?” Nursey responded, as chill as ever.

Dex bristled.

“What the fuck, Nurse? How long have you known?!”

“A month or sooo,” Nursey sing-songed back, before sobering. “Nah, I’ve known since the first time I saw your scars in the locker room. They’re pretty distinctive, you know?” 

“You should have told me!”

“I’m not sorry,” Nursey sang, then shook his head as if to clear it. “Sorry. I mean, I am sorry. I guess I didn’t figure it was that big of a deal?” 

“Not that big of a deal? I could get beaten up or… fucking kicked off the team, Nurse! Jesus,” Dex exclaimed, putting his head in his hands. 

“Do you really think anyone on the team would let that happen to you?” Nursey asked, sounding hurt. 

“...I guess not. My point still stands, though; you should have said something.”

“Yeah, I know. I just didn’t want you to think that I was attacking you or something,” Nursey explained sheepishly, picking at the hem of his sweatshirt. 

Dex paused for a moment to consider Nursey’s reasoning. 

“I suppose that makes sense. Well, since you already know, will you help me fend off Tango’s constant barrage of intrusive questions about things that I don’t want to talk about?” 

Nursey grinned. 

“Already two steps ahead of you. I’ve got four pages of my notebook filled with increasingly wild stories of how you could have sustained injuries that caused scars like that to form. Idea number one: lightning strike.”

\---

The roadie lasted three days, with back-to-back away games and a final day of traveling back. Over the course of those three days, Nursey and Dex provided Tango with no less than forty-three made up explanations for the scars on Dex’s chest, each one more outlandish than the last. 

“So that’s when Dex tripped and fell on a cactus,” Nursey finished, aiming a winning smile in Tango’s general direction. 

Tango tilted his head like a curious dog.

“But wouldn’t he have more scars than that if that were the case?” he asked, looking perplexed. 

“Well, you see,” Nursey started but was cut off by Dex, who had become increasingly agitated throughout the bus ride home. 

“You know what? I would  _ really  _ like to sleep, so if I tell you the real reasoning behind my scars, will you shut up and let me close my eyes for more than two consecutive seconds?” 

Tango looked alarmed, and Dex realized that he had basically been yelling by the end of his sentence. He took a calming breath, and stated as calmly as possible, “The scars are from a double incision mastectomy. I’m transgender.”

“Oh! Okay.” And with that, Tango walked back to his seat and sat down.

Dex stared at the spot where he had been, nonplussed.

“Did he just…?” he started to say, but he trailed off mid-sentence. 

Dex and Nursey sat in silence for a good minute, trying to process what had just happened. Surprisingly, Dex cracked first. What started as a hitched breath quickly escalated to full on cackling. Nursey joined in, and soon they were leaning against each other and wheezing for breath. 

“I can’t believe, after three fucking, days of nonstop questioning, that he just fucking, walked off,” Nursey gasped out between desperate attempts to get air into his lungs.

Dex’s only response was to let out a weird squeaky noise and laugh harder. 

\---

As the bus approached Samwell, Nursey and Dex had finally pulled themselves together. Nursey turned to Dex and asked, “Have you ever considered the possibility of us becoming d-partners in more than one sense of the term?” 

Dex’s response was to punch him. In the mouth. With his own mouth.


End file.
